Faculty of Education

Degree in English Language Teaching

Course material for 1st Year - 2024 Tutor: Contact:
Study Skills II (09 - 15th September)
th
José Pires [email protected]
Week 7

Unit III: Writing Skills

Topic: Writing an Essay Outline

For an essay question on a test or a brief oral presentation in class, all you may need to prepare is a short,
informal outline in which you jot down key ideas in the order you will present them. This kind of outline
reminds you to stay focused in a stressful situation and to include all the good ideas that help you explain
or prove your point.
For a longer assignment, like an essay or a research paper, many college instructors require students to
submit a formal outline before writing a major paper as a way to be sure you are on the right track and are
working in an organized manner. A formal outline is a detailed guide that shows how all your supporting
ideas relate to each other. It helps you distinguish between ideas that are of equal importance and ones
that are of lesser importance. You build your paper based on the framework created by the outline.
Basic features of an essay outline
 Place your introduction and thesis statement at the beginning, under roman numeral I.
 Use roman numerals (II, III, IV, V, etc.) to identify main points that develop the thesis statement.
 Use capital letters (A, B, C, D, etc.) to divide your main points into parts.
 Use arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.) if you need to subdivide any As, Bs, or Cs into smaller
parts.
 End with the final roman numeral expressing your idea for your conclusion.

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Here is what the skeleton of a traditional formal outline looks like. The indention helps clarify how the
ideas are related.
1. IntroductionThesis statement
2. Main point 1 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 1
1. Supporting detail → becomes a support sentence of body paragraph 1
1. Subpoint
2. Subpoint
2. Supporting detail
1. Subpoint
2. Subpoint
3. Supporting detail
1. Subpoint
2. Subpoint
3. Main point 2 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 2
1. Supporting detail
2. Supporting detail
3. Supporting detail
4. Main point 3 → becomes the topic sentence of body paragraph 3
1. Supporting detail
2. Supporting detail
3. Supporting detail
5. Conclusion
TIP
In an outline, any supporting detail can be developed with subpoints. For simplicity, the model shows
them only under the first main point.
Formal outlines are often quite rigid in their organization. As many instructors will specify, you cannot
subdivide one point if it is only one part. For example, for every roman numeral I, there must be a For
every A, there must be a B. For every arabic numeral 1, there must be a 2.
An Essay Outline Sample
Here is the topic outline that Mariah constructed for the essay she is developing. Her purpose is to inform,
and her audience is a general audience of her fellow college students. Notice how Mariah begins with her
thesis statement. She then arranges her main points and supporting details in outline form using short
phrases in parallel grammatical structure.

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 I. Introduction
 Thesis statement: Everyone wants the newest and the best digital technology, but the
choices are many, and the specifications are often confusing.
II. E-book readers and the way that people read
A. Books easy to access and carry around
1. Electronic downloads
2. Storage in memory for hundreds of books
B. An expanding market
1. E-book readers from booksellers
2. E-book readers from electronics and computer companies
C. Limitations of current e-book readers
1. Incompatible features from one brand to the next
2. Borrowing and sharing e-books
III. Film cameras replaced by digital cameras
A. Three types of digital cameras
1. Compact digital cameras
2. Single lens reflex cameras, or SLRs
3. Cameras that combine the best features of both
B. The confusing “megapixel wars”
C. The zoom lens battle
IV. The confusing choice among televisions
A. I080P VS. 768P
B. Plasma screens vs. LCDs
C. Home media centers
V. Conclusion
 How to be a wise consumer

Checklist
Writing an Effective Topic Outline
This checklist can help you write an effective topic outline for your assignment. It will also help you
discover where you may need to do additional reading or prewriting.
 Do I have a controlling idea that guides the development of the entire piece of writing?
 Do I have three or more main points that I want to make in this piece of writing? Does each main
point connect to my controlling idea?
 Is my outline in the best order—chronological order, spatial order, or order of importance—for
me to present my main points? Will this order help me get my main point across?
 Do I have supporting details that will help me inform, explain, or prove my main points?
 Do I need to add more support? If so, where?
 Do I need to make any adjustments in my working thesis statement before I consider it the final
version?